payne to the max part 3 V2.0
Max POV
In a town where the dead walked the streets, I should not have been surprised to see her.
Mona Sax, twin sister to the late Lisa Punchinello, freelance hired killer, last seen bleeding to death in a elevator in the Aesir Corporate Tower, was now standing in front of me.
Even though her appearance now did not mesh with what I remembered of her from a couple of years ago, I knew it was her. The dark hair worn pulled back, the dark brown eyes, the smirk on her face, the steady hand holding the massive Magnum handgun, it was all Mona.
But even so, I could see some major differences in the woman in front of me. Where Mona had been 5'4" and almost petite before, now she was standing at least 5'9" in low heeled boots, with a more voluptuous body to match barely concealed under her leather jacket and tight jeans.
"How is it you're not dead? I saw you take a bullet to the head." Not the most polite question I could have asked, especially since she took that bullet pushing me out of the line of fire.
"Maybe it's still there. Keeps me focused." Mona took a quick look around before she holstered her pistol and bent down to grab the unconscious girl at her feet. "You have a place we can hide out, I don't want to have company find us out here in the open again."
"Yeah, this way." I grabbed the girl's other arm and with Mona's help carried her over to the house. Once we got through the door and locked it, we placed the girl on the couch. With Mona standing there, I did a quick check and saw that except for a bump on the dark haired girl's forehead and a minor cut, there was nothing else wrong with the unconscious twelve year old.
"How did you come across Sleeping Beauty here?" I was being somewhat ironic - the girl was dressed in a black leotard with cat ears and a tail, with whiskers painted on her face.
"She ran up to me screaming that her fellow trick-or-treaters had turned into real monsters and that she needed to get home to her family. We were just about there when we go jumped outside this house. What the hell is going on here, Max, I did see monsters out there, and when I shot them in the head they burned up instantly. I wasn't using incendiary ammo!" Mona wasn't panicking, but her voice was rising none the less as she saw me in full lighting. "And how is it you look like a sixteen year old?"
I was about to try and explain what was going on when Red and Lady Buffy stepped up close to us. Red took one look at the unconscious girl on the couch and gasped. Dropping to her knees, she tried to touch the girl but her hand went through her arm. Except for a shiver the girl did not react.
"Dawnie, ohmygod, Dawnie, is she ok?" Red looked up at me, shock and worry etched on her pale face.
"It looks like she took a bump to her head, she should be ok. Do you know who this girl is?" I asked.
"It's Dawn Summers, Buffy's sister. She went trick-or-treating with a friend's family." Red looked from me to Mona and her eyes widened. "Cordelia, are you ok? Are you still you?"
Mona gave an unladylike snort. "My name is Mona Sax, and except for a splitting headache earlier, I'm just peachy."
Red stood up and made to move toward Mona, but with a glare the ghost stayed put. "Ohmygod Cordelia you were wearing a costume, you're not you anymore, you turned into your costume like we all did."
Mona looked from Red to me. "What the hell is she babbling about? Turned into our costume? And where the hell are we, last I remember I was on Coney Island."
I scratched my head, trying to figure out how I was going to do this, when Red did the little speech she had done with me earlier. It took Mona looking at herself in the hall mirror to begin to believe it, but finally she began to accept it.
Mona was still looking at herself in disbelief when Red asked an awkward question that snapped her out of it. "Say that again?"
"What were you dressed up as? Buffy was dressed up as a noblewoman, Xander was dressed up as a video game cop, I was dressed up as a ghost, what were you dressed as?"
Mona and I looked at each other, wondering what to say. Even if we were fictional characters, most people did not react well to hearing that you were a professional killer.
"You were a ghost? Ghost of what?" Mona's look and question back to Red caused her to start to sputter, giving us a couple moments to think of something. Finally Mona responded when Red calmed down somewhat. "You could say that I am a corporate troubleshooter. People have problems with other people, I get called in to deal with it."
"Wouldn't you have to be dressed better for that? I didn't think you could work in the corporate world dressed like that." Red was looking at Mona's jacket and jeans in some confusion.
"Not really. It's not a bad job - I get to set my own hours and the money isn't too bad. Benefits suck, though." Mona flashed a quick smirk toward me.
"Yeah, I heard that a lot of part-timers lost benefits in downsizing." Red turned toward me and was about to ask me something when we heard a voice from the kitchen doorway. "It's getting insane out there Buffy, you don't know…"
That was as far the tall dark haired man got before he saw that there were three handguns pointed at his head. Mona and I might have fired if it had not been for Red jumping in between us, her hands out as thought to ward off the bullets. "Don't shoot, don't shoot, Angel's a good guy!"
"Good guys are *not* that quiet." Mona kept her pistol pointed at the stranger steadily. He seemed to be fixated on her Desert Eagle instead of my two Berettas, not that I blamed him. I've stood in front of Desert Eagles pointed at me, and the barrels looked big enough to crawl into.
"He's a friend, he helps us out with the vampires, put the guns down!" Red really was not in a position to order us around, but we slowly lowered our pistols. "Look, I have to go tell Giles what is happening, Angel can help protect you and Buffy." Red would have said more, but the girl on the couch started to groan and wake up.
"Dawnie, you're awake, are you OK?" Red rushed over to the couch, but this time kept herself from reaching toward the girl.
"I have a splitting headache, what happened Willow? I was trick-or-treating with Stacy and her family when they turned into butterflies and bees and flew off! Then a bunch of Ewoks started chasing me waving their spears and if it hadn't been for this scary lady I would have been barbeque right now. She was taking me home when another group of monsters rushed us and something hit my head and next thing I know…" Dawn looked over at Mona and me, who were standing off to the side trying to look inconspicuous but failing miserably. "That's the lady who helped me, the one with the giant gun! Who are you?!"
Mona tried to smile reassuringly, but failed to keep the smile from becoming her normal smirk. "I saw you were being chased, so I decided to help out. You're feeling better now, right?" Dawn nodded jerkily.
"What's happening, Willow?" The dark haired man asked. While Red gave him and Dawn a quick rundown (with minimal mentions of magic I noticed), both Mona and I gave the guy a quick once over. He looked to be a little taller and wider than me, dressed in a black leather jacket and dark shirt and pants. He was good looking in a slick kind of way, but for some reason the hackles were rising on the back of my neck.
After Red finished explaining the situation, Angel and Dawn were shooting looks at Lady Buffy, who was sitting off to the side looking quite ill at ease. Red moved toward the door, waved goodbye and quickly passed through the door.
The four of us were staring at each other for a few moments in silence before Dawn broke the ice. Or more accurately tossed a lit M-80 onto the frozen skating rink of conversation. Looking toward Mona, she said "So… hired killer, huh? How's that working out for you?"
I shot a quick look at Mona, who had not quite kept her mouth closed from the shock. After a moment, she responded weakly, "I told you, I'm a corporate troubleshooter."
Dawn snorted. "Yeah right. I'm not a bleached blonde like my sister or naïve like Willow. I've seen the movies Grosse Point Blank and The Professional, I can tell you're a professional killer. I don't think corporate troubleshooters literally shoot the problems with a giant gun like that." Dawn nodded at the Desert Eagle Mona still had in her hand.
Mona looked over at me, a question on her face. I shrugged and nodded, holstering my own Berettas. After Mona replaced her hand cannon in her shoulder holster, she turned back to the young girl and gave a shrug of her own. "Like I said before, the pay's OK, but the benefits suck. No medical either."
Dawn turned toward me. "You a hired killer too?"
I inwardly winced. More than a few people saw me as a mad dog after I went after the Mob, Aesir and Horne. I didn't know how many people Mona had killed in her line of work - I didn't want to know - but I was pretty sure I had her beat hands down.
After looking at Dawn for a few moments, to the point where she began to look uncomfortable, I quietly answered, "No. I was DEA undercover for three years, got transferred back to NYPD Homicide a year ago."
"Cool." Dawn bounced around and looked at Lady Buffy, who was now ghosting around the room, looking at the various pictures and knickknacks. Looking back at us, she lowered her voice and asked, "Do you think you can teach me some stuff?"
"What?!" Angel, Mona, and I all exclaimed at the same time.
"Look, I know there are weird things that happen in this town, and that Buffy and you guys are in the thick of it. Mom doesn't know, but I don't want to wind up kitty chow for something that goes bump in the night around here."
"Your Mom doesn't know what's happening?" This question came from Mona, who tried to not sound incredulous.
"Duh. Buffy tried to tell her back when we were in LA and she wound up in the psych ward for a couple weeks before she took it back and the shrinks told Mom and Dad that it was just a story so they wouldn't get divorced." Dawn looked down at her hands for a moment before looking up again. "That and I've seen Buffy squirting holy water on Mom's car with a spray bottle so the monsters don't attack her on the way home. Or that Buffy always watches Mom when she gets home when she walks from her car to the front door at night."
Mona and I looked at each other in disbelief. With our time in the underworld, Mona and I learned to be cautious and to be aware of our surroundings at all times. But to hear a twelve year old tell us that she and her sixteen year old sister had to permanently operate on a war footing every night? Looking over at Angel, we could tell that he was shocked as well.
Just then, we heard a loud bang at the front door. Angel and I ran up to the door as more banging was heard. Looking out the side window, we could see a group of small monsters throwing themselves at the front door trying to break it down, apparently the same group from earlier. Quickly Angel and I upended a table and braced it against the door to reinforce it.
Just then, we heard a crash from the back door and the sound of wood and glass hitting the floor. Looking at Angel he nodded and ran toward the kitchen to seal that breach while I held the front door. Meanwhile, Mona had her Desert Eagle out while standing in front of Lady Buffy and Dawn, who was holding her in place in spite of her protests.
Suddenly, I heard a series of loud crashes coming from the kitchen before I heard Mona yell out the most feared phrase in the shooter's lexicon before she was drowned out by gunfire.
"Max! Breakthrough! BREAKTHROUGH!"
The girls were being overrun by hostiles.
end payne to the max part 3